Happy September!

It's September 1st! I was thinking back to only a month ago when I was still sitting around alone waiting for Aaron to come home from camp. August was a busy month, and now we're headed into a maybe not-so-busy-but-still-pretty-busy September. Also, the year is 3/4 of the way over. What?

Anyway, time moves on. Here's what's coming up for us this month...

1. Labor Day.    Right now, I am actually sitting on the couch on a Sunday night with my husband at home and not at Journey Students. We also have the day off tomorrow. It's lovely. 
2. INFUSE retreat.   Aaron and I leave on Wednesday morning for our sixth INFUSE retreat. This is a great time for Aaron to re-charge and get new ideas for all things dealing with family ministry. He's made such great friends and we both look forward to this time away to be reminded of why we do what we do.
3. Keyen's birthday.    Sweet Keyen turns two this month! I can't believe that two years have gone by since this day:

He was so tiny! We will be out of town on his actual birthday, but we have a date planned for the next week.

4. Taylor Swift.     My sweet, handsome, wonderful, spoils-me-too-much husband bought me tickets to see Taylor Swift like forever ago when they went on sale. I can't believe it's finally time to use them. We are both Taylor Swift fans. We think she's classy. 

5. MSO retreat.     Towards the end of September, we are headed to Black Mountain, NC with a big group of middle school students for a weekend retreat. I'm excited, since the last one was so much fun.

6. Fun with friends.     We have our monthly date with Renee and Derrick on the calendar as well as a date scheduled with some new friends that we are excited to hang with. Bensen and Keyen are on the schedule for a babysitting night as well. 

It's going to be a good month. And I cannot even wait until the next time I'm writing this post. You know what my favorite month is, right? It's headed our way, friends. October is coming, of course!

about Goldfish crackers and other things

It was a shopping day today. Journey kids sure love Goldfish. This will last a couple months. Maybe.

Speaking of Journey, over the past three weekends, 192 people "went public" with their commitment to follow Jesus. Mind=blown.

I never get tired of watching people get baptized. It's one of my favorite things we do at Journey.

And also speaking of Journey, our college small group, Journey18:25, kicked off for the fall semester. We are doing a study of Hebrews 11 over the next several weeks that my one and only husband pieced together.

This week, one of our assignments was to take a picture to represent each day of creation and share it on Instagram. I will share them on here as well after I take them all.

I am trying to figure out how I'm going to take a picture for the first day (light and dark), when the sky and sun and other lights weren't created yet. The struggle, I know.

Anyway, that's all for this random post. We are doing well. We are busy. We are having fun per usual.

about the night Ben Affleck kept me awake

Hey everyone.

I hope you all had a good week. Our week was...long. But mostly good. Last night I had rehearsal at church and then crashed at home.

Aaron and I have been watching all three seasons of Batman Beyond for the past few months.

Before you're just like "Oh, what a good wife she is..." for enduring my husband's Batman obsession, I do actually enjoy watching most Batman things with him. I mean, before he even came along, I was pretty Batman savvy. I was even Batgirl for Halloween one year.

Anyway, I had never seen Batman Beyond and it's on Netflix. So we've had fun watching that over the summer. Yes, it is a cartoon. Don't judge us.

So began our Batman night, that quickly went downhill.

We decided to save the very last episode for another day and went to bed. I was exhausted, and was about to close my eyes and sleep, when who but Ben Affleck decided to disturb my slumber.

Aaron opened up his Nook and was accosted with the news of the new Batman to star in the upcoming Superman sequel.

Ben. Affleck.

Here was his immediate reaction:

Sleep was postponed as I tried to console him.

I suppose life goes on.

Why did you abandon us, Christian Bale? WHY? WHY?

about our Journey-filled weekend

Hi.

It's oh-so-wonderful to be at home. And to be here. Aaron and have agreed that we can't quite have the same crazy summer schedule that we just had again. Surely there is a healthy middle ground.

It was fun-filled, of course.

But it was draining.

And we have never been so glad to be home. And be working even.

I had to agree with Aaron last Friday when he said he was excited to go back to work. It just felt like we had been missing out on so much by not being there.

So, since Friday, we've definitely been re-entering "Journey mode."

Friday, Aaron and I began the task of doing all of the work online to make our promotion weekend go smoothly. Let me just say, our church database, CCB, does not mess around with promotion. They are so serious.

THERE IS NO UNDO.

It warned us of that twice more before we finished. I mean, it's good I guess. It would be a pain in the you-know-what to mess up the promotion of 1,600 people to the next year/grade...

Thankfully, everything was correct, and we were able to start the weekend off on Saturday with our two new services.

For Journey Kids, the services went....

Well, they happened.

Really, they went well. Anything brand new like that always takes some time for everyone to get used to. Kids heard about Jesus and that's all that really matters. We had a lot of brand new volunteers that jumped in with no clue what they were doing, but they did awesome. 

It was a lot of fun. Hey, if Aaron and I could always do Saturday night, we totally would. You have most of your Saturday free, and then you still have a whole Sunday to rest. It's the way to go. You should attend on Saturday. Do it. But make sure you serve for one service!

Anyway, Sunday was wonderful as well, especially because we did not have our normal third service. Everyone got to sleep in a little later and leave a little earlier. It's a nice break for the next few months.

To end the weekend, we also kicked off a brand new season of Journey Students. Aaron and I still love that we get to help out with student ministry. There was great turn out (although the free pizza and ice cream may have had something to do with it).

MSO (Middle School Only)

3:12 (High School)

We were exhausted at the end of Sunday night, but it was definitely in the best way possible. There's no place else we'd rather be.

about August 8th

Four years ago at this time, I was off on an adventure.

My boyfriend had somehow broken into my parents' house (so it seemed), woken me up, made me take a shower, and then abandoned me with just this video to watch.

I set off in my car that morning kind of knowing what I thought might happen, but not entirely sure.

My first stop involved friends and board games.

I met other friends along the way, and collected clues from Aaron.

I had lunch with my best pal. 

And then headed to Journey to dig through baby dolls and ziplock bags with Amanda.

Until finally, I reached a bridge and was reunited with Aaron.

It was definitely a proposal that I could never forget! Happy Engagement Day Anniversary, Aaron Bauer. You definitely swept me off my feet!

hello from Tennessee

Hello from the Smoky Mountains!

It's been a great few days visiting family. My parents blessed us with a cozy cabin to stay in, and it's been such a nice setting for our trip. Especially the hot tub!

Since we've been here, we've gone outlet shopping, had too much food, and played our favorite family board game, Aggravation.

I can't believe it's already time to go home tomorrow, but we have a busy weekend ahead. Only three more days until we start Saturday services!

Speaking of Journey, we have a new App available. You should check it out.

Not much else to share today, but check back tomorrow. It's the anniversary of one of my favorite days ever.